


Going Home

by Littlebluejay_hidingpeanuts



Series: Charlie [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21801178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlebluejay_hidingpeanuts/pseuds/Littlebluejay_hidingpeanuts
Summary: What’s it like for a hitman to be in is childhood home?
Series: Charlie [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1570552
Kudos: 1





	Going Home

**Author's Note:**

> Un-betaed

Charles was reluctant to come home. He never liked flying, so to ease his anxiety he always rode first class. But not this time. Because of the desperate, almost too late call from his mother’s sister, he had to choke through three hours of stale coach air to Lansing, Michigan and a two hour drive in a rental, a smoker had died in, through mainly fields to reach his mother’s house in Pompeii. He tried opening the window, but the pollen count had him wheezing. He took note of the rental employee’s name.

It drove him nuts that everyone in the neighborhood mispronounced Pompeii, calling it Pom-pee-eye, instead of Pom-pay. Coming home was not a comfortable thing. Walking through the house he had grown up in, just made him have to stop is legs from taking him out to the bus stop and riding miles away. He itched to run and not stop, like he had when he was fifteen. 

He looked from the kitchen into the living room. His cousin’s child was sitting on a sickly yellow couch covered in shrink-wrap. He tried to jump off the couch and was snapped back by the plastic stuck to his thighs. The child cried out and slowly peeled himself off the plastic, onto his stomach, and scooted off the couch.

A horseshoe hung over the back door, still with the ding on one side, from when he’d thrown it into the living room wall. The resulting gouge had been repaired long ago. The spot of discolored paint was hidden behind a picture of grandma. Cross-stitch platitudes hung in every room.

”Do you want some coffee cake? Have a slice,” his Aunt Nancy said from the sink. She had been washing dishes since the mourners had left. Charles gazed at the kitchen table covered with coffee cakes. The casseroles and sliced meat and cheese platters were already in the fridge. All his mother’s relatives and friends brought coffee cake. The casseroles had come from friends from out of state. The deli platter was his Aunt’s contribution. Charles would be leaving with a coffee cake, maybe two if Aunt Nancy got ahold of his luggage. 

“No, thank you, ma’am.” Charles’ manners shifted when he was surrounded by this much coffee cake and unsweetened tea. He was saved from his Aunt’s attention when his cousin Sarah came in, to talk to her mother about sleeping at a hotel. Charles snuck out and up the stairs, his feet on the plastic runners thru the living room making squish sounds as his shoes stuck to the accumulated grime. His mother had always kept them clean, but that had obviously stopped as she gotten sick. 

He spent many minutes gazing at the family photographs hanging in the upstairs hallway. Pictures of his mother as a young girl, a few with Charles and her in the first years of his life, and many more group photos that included his extended family. His father was only in the ones where everyone was there, except for his professional military photo. In uniform William looked firm and proper, respectable, but it was a lie. It was a pretty lie for everyone to believe, to fall in love with, to aspire to be, to be proud of. A lie that covered up all the bruises, cuts, and eventually broken bones. Charles remembered the day he left. William had seen him as he was walking home from the bar. The smell of his whiskey breath and unbrushed teeth was putrid as he had laughed in his son’s face. 

“Good luck to you, Willie, m’boy. You’re strong, like me. You’re mother never understood that. She could never have held a gun and killed someone, not like me. Your brother couldn’t have either. You could, though. You would kill me right now, if I gave you the chance. Too bad you can’t. Too bad for your poor mother. She’s losing her white knight of a son.” His parting words echoed against the stars. “Good night and good luck, William Charles.”

There was a crunch that awoke Charles from his pounding heart and clenched fists. He was careful not to jerk away from the broken glass. He slowly pulled his hand away from the glass covering William’s picture. He picked the slivers out of his hand and let them drop to the floor. Charles looked into his bedroom for a few seconds before remembering that he did not care. Everything he needed, and wanted, was either in his bag downstairs or at his place in New York. 

”William Charles Ryan, is that you? My. You have grown. So, what are you getting up to these days?” a middle-aged woman said as she walked up the stairs. It was odd hearing his old name so much over the last two days. She touched his shoulder and rubbed the fabric. She hummed softly, slightly disapproving. He was sure she thought he was putting on airs. It was Aunt Carol. She was his mother’s next-door-neighbor, and always insisted he call her “Aunt Carol”. 

“Hello, Aunt Carol,” Charles said, stuffing his hands in his pockets, hoping the blood wouldn’t stain.

”My, we have gone up in the world. What nice clothes. So nice of you to dress up for your mama’s funeral. Why, I remember having to take you apart like a spring chicken. Everything had to be taken off. And you would wiggle and run away. It was so cute, you running around bare-bottomed. At least until your father would...well, never mind that. What have you been doing with yourself all these years?” She wrapped her arm around his and guided him back downstairs. 

Aunt Carol chattered on about how he hadn’t been to his father’s funeral, as they crossed the living room, staying on the runners. She continued how it was so right that he come home for his mother’s. She sat him down in the kitchen and fixed him a plate of cake, chattering at his real aunt. All he could do was stare at the back door, wishing he was far away.

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism welcome, but politeness is a must.


End file.
